


Timing, Degree and Conviction

by ETraytin



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Alternate Scene "No Exit", Description of Traumatic Injury, F/M, Gaza Arc, Tumblr Prompt, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-19 15:36:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8214518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ETraytin/pseuds/ETraytin
Summary: "The essential ingredient of politics is timing." -Pierre Trudeau What if the lockdown in No Exit had been just five minutes later, and instead of Donna, CJ and Josh were stuck in her office?  And how would it change Donna's trip to Gaza?





	1. Timing

**Author's Note:**

> This is another Tumblr prompt for Anonymous, who asked for "It's Josh instead of Donna who gets stuck with CJ in her office the night of the lockdown." This was a good prompt since all I apparently want to write about right now is CJ. :D Still working slowly through my list of prompts, but I've only got three left! Hope you enjoy this one, feedback is always amazing and welcome!

Josh popped into CJ's doorway moments after Donna walked out with the CODEL briefing book. “What's up with Donna?” he asked. “She blew out of here looking like somebody canceled Christmas, didn't even look at me in the hall.” He sounded deeply aggrieved. 

“Have you got the stuff?” CJ asked instead of answering his question. 

“Yeah, I got it,” he said with a frown. He held up a white styrofoam container that in happier times might contain leftover soup. “Twenty-four prime quality nightcrawlers, guaranteed alive as of this morning, fresh from my refrigerator which I will now need to have decontaminated.” 

“Thank you very much,” She plucked the container from his hands and stowed it inside the tackle basket. “Do I even want to know where you managed to find live bait in DC? 

“I have no idea,” he admitted with a grin. “I sent an intern out for it.” 

“You're a bad person,” she assured him. 

“Leo's eventually going to stop giving me interns and all our lives will be a lot easier.” 

Before CJ could say anything to that, a black-suited Secret Service agent stuck his head in the door. “Mr. Lyman, Ms. Cregg, we are currently in a crash situation. Please remain in this room until the crash has been lifted. 

“Come on, seriously?” Josh asked. “I've been here eighteen hours and you schedule a drill now?” 

“It's not a drill, Mr. Lyman. Please remain where you are.” The agent pulled away and shut the door. Josh and CJ looked at each other. 

“Three more minutes and I would've been out of here,” CJ sighed. “But at least I have plenty of live worms to show for it.” 

Josh reached for CJ's phone. “Can I?” he asked. “I wanna check on Donna, if she's still here.” When CJ nodded and stepped aside, he dialed his own office. “Hey, yeah.” he said into the phone. “I'm stuck in CJ's office. Oh, Commander Harper is there? Yeah, that's fine, just don't go letting him talk you into a date-” CJ rolled her eyes, but Josh wasn't paying attention. “She? Oh. Yeah, okay. See if you can sweet-talk her into telling me what the hell happened to my Panama joke. I'll find you when they let us out of here.” He hung up the phone without signing off and slumped onto CJ's couch. “This sucks.” 

“You think it sucks?” CJ asked, kicking off her shoes and sitting down in her desk chair. “I'm supposed to be making a rendezvous right now to drive out to the Shenandoahs on a romantic weekend getaway, pitch a tent under the stars, wake up-” She broke off when Josh started giggling uncontrollably. “Oh for God's sake.” 

“You said-” Josh choked out, then ducked hastily as one of CJ's shoes came flying his way. “I mean, that really is unfortunate, CJ,” he managed, with grin reduced to a mile-wide smirk. “However will you cope with being late for your moonlight tent-p-” He yelped as the second shoe actually made contact with his shin. 

“If you'd kindly return from your brief excursion to the third grade, maybe I won't have to hurt you anymore,” CJ requested calmly, wriggling a bit as she removed her hose beneath her dress. Years of experience had taught her how to do it without showing anything, but she was pretty certain that if Josh had noticed, he'd have had another barrage of juvenile comments to throw at her. Luckily, he was distracted by her shoes. 

He picked one up, turned it over in his hand, mimed stabbing someone with the icepick heel. “I'm not sure these should be allowed in the White House,” he decided. “They're really dangerous.” 

“To me more than anyone else,” she agreed absently. 

“What the hell do you need to be taller for, anyway? You and Donna, always with the heels. Makes me feel like I should be wearing lifts or something.” 

'To intimidate you, mi amour,” CJ replied, yanking the hose all the way off and shoving it into her desk drawer for later. “Men have funny reactions to women who are taller than them. Invokes the old elementary school teacher instincts.” When his mouth dropped open at that, she smirked. “Honestly, it's not about the height. They make my legs look fantastic.” 

“You do have fantastic legs,” he agreed, for once without a hint of innuendo. “Must be all the falling off the treadmill paying off.” 

“I really don't know why I ever tell you anything,” she muttered. There was really no way to change the rest of her outfit in mixed company, but at least it was a bit more comfortable now. She picked up a stack of memos Carol had left on her desk and began to sort through them for lack of anything better to do. 

Josh picked up her trail bag and opened it without asking, beginning to pick through the survival and camping gear she'd brought along. They were quiet for a few minutes before he asked, “So Donna was mad when she left here earlier. Why was that?” 

“She got the briefing book for the CODEL.” 

“Why would that piss her off?”Josh asked, mystified. 

“I take it you didn't tell her she was bumping Jack Sosa from the CODEL.” CJ set down her memos and turned her chair to face him. 

“No, but why should it matter?” he asked, experimentally untwisting the end of her spool of guy line. “Jack Sosa's a little douchebag.” 

“Maybe, but he's my little douchebag, and he earned that trip,” CJ countered, letting a little of her own irritation slip through the way she hadn't earlier with Donna. “What are you doing sending Donna to do an assistant press secretary's job?” 

“Anybody can send press faxes and organize the dispatches,” Josh replied with a deliberately casual shrug. CJ recognized him going into political combat mode and wondered at it. “Donna wants to expand her portfolio of responsibilities, this looked like a good opportunity.”

“She wants to work in Communications now?” CJ asked skeptically. “Not that I wouldn't take her in a heartbeat, obviously, but this CODEL isn't in her wheelhouse. It's administrative busywork for press aides that's made slightly more sexy by the fact that you have to take a twelve-hour plane flight to get there. Jack speaks a little Hebrew and he's been doing the job for more than a year now, so he's the natural choice. Since when do I not get to assign the White House press liaisons?” 

Josh was clearly uncomfortable now, and letting that discomfort turn into irritation. “You have input over the way the press liaisons are assigned, CJ, but final approval rests with the office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, which oversees the 1100 people working in this building, including Jack Sosa and yourself. So if you get a personnel reassignment from me, I'm not entirely sure where you get off questioning that!” 

CJ's fingers tightened around her chair as she leaned forward, ready to snap out a response, but she deliberately throttled herself back. Josh thrived on conflict, the louder the better. Ramping up the aggression was not a winning strategy here, especially with the two of them trapped in her office for the next indeterminate amount of time. She leaned back in her chair, relaxed her posture, crossed her legs. Studied him silently for a minute while he glared at her. “We've worked together for a long time now,” she told him quietly. “You don't try and pull rank very often. When you do, it's either for an incredibly good reason or an incredibly stupid reason. I can live with Jack not going on the CODEL, but I would like you to tell me why.” 

He continued to glare at her a minute for the “incredibly stupid” bit, but she knew he was enough of a debater to know when he didn't have a leg to stand on. Finally he sighed, slumping back against the couch. “It's got nothing to do with Jack, or with your choosing the press liaisons,” he admitted, which was not a shock to CJ. “Donna really wanted to go on the Brussels trip, the trade negotiation thing. She did a shitload of work for it, even beyond the shitload of work I already have her doing. It was stuff I normally would've given to Ed and Larry or some of the assistant deputies, but she took it on her own initiative, and she did good work. Really good work. When she asked to go on the trip I blew her off because, god, Belgium? Who the hell wants to go to Belgium?” He screwed up his face to indicate his own opinion of Belgium. 

“I'm guessing Donna doesn't share your opinion of Belgium,” CJ observed dryly. 

“Yeah, but she's interested in all kinds of crazy stuff.” His expression was more affectionate than exasperated, CJ noted with some interest. “Anyway I tried at the last minute to get her on the trip, but it was full up, and Toby was bitching about this whole CODEL thing. I talked with him about it, and we figured hey, send Donna on the trip and she gets out of the White House and doing something different for awhile, and Toby knows there's somebody sensible there to keep Andy out of trouble. It makes sense, CJ! Two birds, one stone. The press stuff won't be any problem, I'm sure she'll know it backwards and forwards before she goes.” 

CJ got up from her desk and came around to sit in one of the chairs near the couch, more sympathetic than annoyed now. “You can be a very sweet man, Joshua,” she told him, “but sometimes you miss the point entirely.” 

“What do you mean?” he demanded. 

“Donna didn't want to go to Brussels because she loves Belgium or wants a vacation from the White House,” CJ told him, leaning forward and resting her clasped hands on one knee. “She took on that work because she grew out of being your assistant about three years ago and she's stifling in that job. She wants more responsibility, and she wants recognition for the work she does. She's sharper and more astute than any of your assistant deputies, and she works more hours than any of the other assistants, on the same salary. If you want to let her spread her wings, don't send her to Gaza, send her up to the Hill to do some actual legislative work!” 

“I can't make her an assistant deputy, CJ!” he retorted, readily enough that he'd obviously at least considered it. “Every other AD has a college degree, most of them more than a BA, and political experience. What would it look like? She can't go anywhere because she hasn't got a degree!” 

“And she can't get a degree because she works even more hours than Charlie, with no downtime,” CJ noted. “You know and I know that I could pick up this phone right now and have a new job for her within two calls. A good job, one that would let her actually reach her potential the way she's never going to in your bullpen.” 

Josh was silent, not meeting her eyes anymore. CJ hoped he was listening as she went on. “Carol's a fantastic assistant, and she wants to be a press spokesperson one day. She's going to get there, but she's not there yet. She's also my friend, so I've been trying to give her opportunities to get better at it, letting her handle the gaggle or draft press releases or help me think out strategies. She's not nearly as close to being a press secretary as Donna is to being a deputy chief of staff. You know she ran your office for twelve weeks back in the first term and held it all together, even as green as she was. She's better now. How long do you think you can hold onto her, Josh?” 

“I don't know,” he admitted, still looking down, his voice hoarse. “I don't know why she's staying now.” 

“Are you serious?” CJ mastered the urge to laugh in disbelief. “You can't possibly tell me you haven't seen-” 

“Don't say it!” he snapped, suddenly meeting her eyes again. He looked half-wild, his face ravaged. “You can't say it CJ, you're the first one who'd tell me that. I haven't said it in four years, you don't get to say anything about it now.” 

Well, that put an entirely new spin on the whole situation. CJ pursed her lips and regarded him with pity. She'd thought after the Terrible Travails of Amy Gardner than Josh's fascination with Donna was a thing of the past, even if hers with him was not. Apparently he'd just gotten better at hiding it. “You know, if she leaves your office...” 

“I'll still have been her boss,” he pointed out, “and I'll never even see her! We're both workaholics with no lives, and that's not a matter of me tying her to her chair to keep her here. If she leaves the White House, I'll lose her, CJ. I can't do it.” He dropped his head into his hands. “And if she stays here and we just keep doing this...whatever, she's eventually going to start to hate me. I just... I need to buy some time to figure this out.” 

Rising from her seat, CJ swept her skirt to one side and sat down on the couch next to him, giving him a one-armed hug. “Toby told me the story of Inauguration Night,” she told him. “We both thought something was going to happen between you then.” 

“I think she thought so too,” Josh said with a humorless laugh. “But you know we can't. It would be a scandal, hurt the administration. We don't need the bad press, and god knows she doesn't need to hear the things they'll say about her.” 

“I would think that would be up to her to decide,” CJ pointed out mildly. “As for the rest, well, you're not wrong to worry, but this is the second term. We're not standing for reelection, and you have a phenomenal press spokesperson in your corner, if I do say so myself. Midterms are around the corner, but once those are done...” 

He raised his head from his hands and looked at her. “You'd back me on this?” 

“Don't get me wrong,” she told him, “Leo will still probably give you hell about it, and she might have to transfer somewhere else in the White House, depending on how convincingly you can sell your complete lostness without her. But as far as the press is concerned, it's something that can be handled. And of course I'm on your side.” Her smile was bittersweet. “You think I, of all people, can't sympathize with what it's like to want somebody and not be able to have them because of your jobs?”

Josh dropped his eyes again. “Yeah...” They both sighed. “Do you think it'll make a difference?” he asked. “I mean, if she's really so stifled in her job...” 

“The job only goes two more years,” CJ pointed out. “And it's still the White House, working here isn't nothing. I suspect that if you relieve your mutual ongoing frustrations, the rest of it won't seem nearly so unmanageable. But the only way to know for sure is to talk to her about it,” she told him pointedly. 

“Yeah, talk to her...” Josh repeated, not sounding too enthused. “After the midterms, huh?” 

“I can only spin so many things at once,” she told him. “We need those seats.”

“Right. I gotta think about this,” he admitted. “I need to get some contingency plans worked out. After the CODEL I'll talk to her, and we'll both talk to you, and we'll figure something out.” 

“You really want to send her on a babysitting trip to Gaza still?” she asked. 

He shrugged. “I can't pull her now without explaining why, and she's already on all the paperwork. It'll still be a good experience for her, and maybe Toby's blood pressure will drop a couple of points. And it'll be something she can tell our grandkids about.” He seemed to be rolling that phrase around in his mouth, deciding how he felt about the taste. 

She laughed and nudged him with her shoulder. “Don't jump the gun there, slugger. You've got a lot of work to do before you get to the grandparent bit.” 

“Oh ye of little faith,” he retorted, some of his swagger beginning to seep back in. “Don't you know that I'm a master negotiator?” She rolled her eyes and he shoulder-checked her back. “I saw that. It's practically a done deal!” He picked up her trail bag again and began to paw through it. “Hey, have you got any granola bars in here? I'm starving.” 

CJ laughed and relaxed, leaning back against the couch. “Yeah, front pocket, take whatever you want. But you're gonna owe me.” 

“Big time,” he agreed, pulling one out of the bag and sitting back next to her. “You know I'm good for it.” Neither of them were talking about granola bars now. 

“I know. Just don't screw up, okay?” She patted his knee and they both lapsed into silence, waiting for their chance to go home.


	2. Degree

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hadn't originally planned on adding any additional parts to this fic, but I got several requests to see how the Gaza arc would play out given the changed conditions at the end of Chapter One. Since the Gaza Arc is one of my favorite stories and writing more would require another full rewatch, I quickly decided to take the prompt. This is the second of what will almost certainly be a three-part fic. See what your comments and feedback can do? 
> 
> (A brief note about timing: it's a fairly well-known fact that the second midterm elections and about a year of time are lost during the second Bartlet administration. I am playing fast and loose with that here, inserting the midterms and consequently expanding the amount of time between Talking Points and Gaza. I don't think it makes a huge amount of difference in the end.)

Josh was nearly unbearable in the entire run-up to the CODEL, but that was nothing CJ hadn't been expecting. Now that his deep, dark secret was out of the bag with CJ, he considered her a co-conspirator, and was in her office pretty much every day to discuss the new ins and outs of the Donna situation and try to make CJ explain the enigma that was Josh's assistant. CJ alternately humored him and chased him out of her office, depending on the day and her mood, but was secretly amused to watch such a self-assured and often arrogant man do a little harmless floundering. She considered bringing Carol into the loop before her assistant started wondering what she and Josh were up to in her office, but decided that it would be a breach of trust. That didn't stop her from sending Carol to the Operations bullpen regularly to get the temperature on things between the DCOS and his staff. 

It was also entertaining, if not a little scary, to watch how he threw himself into the end of the midterm campaigns as though all his future happiness depended upon picking up four more seats in the House and two in the Senate. CJ had thought Josh intense during previous election cycles, but now he was truly a man on a mission. Some days CJ's only advice was to remind him that Donna had to talk down most of the people that Josh pissed off in the course of the day, and he was probably not endearing himself to her by increasing that number in his zeal. He muttered something about buying his own damn fruit baskets, but seemed to tone things down a little. Whatever he did, it seemed to work. They only got two of the House Seats they wanted, but they secured both Senate seats, offsetting the loss of Carrick (who did not survive his party defection, much to Josh's glee) and bringing the Democrats within one seat of control. 

Mindful of her promise to help after the elections, CJ did pull Donna into her office a week before the CODEL to go over the press details with her. Donna was obviously excited about the trip, but her enthusiasm was guarded. “Is Jack still putting together voodoo dolls?” was her first question upon sitting down. 

“I think you're safe,” CJ reported. “He's dating somebody from Congressman McKenna's office and apparently it's getting pretty serious. It may have been pointed out to him that prepping and going on a ten-day trip to the Middle East would've put a severe dent in his social schedule.” 

“Oh, that's good.” Donna looked down and brushed her hair back from her face, her favorite nervous gesture. “I mean, Josh still might be sending me on this trip to shut me up, but at least I won't get warts or a herniated disc from it or anything.” 

“Donna,” CJ began in her best big sister voice. “Don't be stupid. That's not what this trip is about.” 

“It's not?” Donna looked up at CJ without raising her chin, a posture that made her eyes seem to take over her entire face. 

“Of course it's not. When Josh wants somebody to shut up, he either tells them to their face or ignores them till they go away,” CJ pointed out. “If they have him over a barrel, he might throw them a bone, grudgingly, and then stew about it until he can find a way to get his revenge.” Donna nodded, almost in spite of herself. “He doesn't think up unsolicited favors to do for people unless he actually likes them.” 

Donna's chin came up a little. “But then why this trip, and why now?” 

“I don't know, maybe he wanted you to share his disdain for Belgium?” CJ replied glibly. “Maybe just because he needs somebody he can trust to report back to us on how things are going there, and he doesn't trust Jack. If the esteemed Congresspersons are about to get us back into another war down there, you can at least tell Korb and Desantos apart, which might put you a step above several of my assistant deputies. Probably doesn't hurt Toby's feelings any that now Andy won't be the only woman on the trip, either, but that's not the reason you're going. You know that if I thought you weren't suited to the trip, I'd have gone to Leo already.” 

By now Donna was smiling a little bit, but she still didn't look entirely sure. “I know, and I'll do a good job for you, I promise.” She set down her book and waved her hands a little. “I guess I just don't know what I'm supposed to make of this trip, what I'm supposed to do with it. Is it a growth experience, is it a working vacation, is it a babysitting trip? Are things going to be any different when I get back?” 

CJ smiled at her, and tried to keep a poker face at the same time. It wasn't too hard; she was the Press Secretary. “Milk the trip for everything it's worth,” she advised Donna. “You're going someplace most people are never going to visit, to get a firsthand look at one of the most complex political situations in the world. The press job comes first, but you're going to have an opportunity to see things that the Congressmen probably won't have time or interest in seeing, and you're going to be telling some of the most powerful people in the world about those things. It's not a babysitting gig, but even if it were, it would be a lot more than that too. Take advantage of it!” She didn't dare add anything about how different things would be after Donna came back; that was Josh's responsibility. She'd done her best. 

Donna brightened. “Yeah, that's true. I should get an extra card for my digital camera and pack a journal along. I can send pictures back while I'm there. I've already had to reassure my parents about a thousand times that the trip is going to be safe and anybody who wants to get to me would have to go through four or five guys first.” 

“Still be careful,” CJ reminded her. “Being in a politically fascinating place isn't always a good thing.” 

“I will be,” Donna promised. “Can we go over the faxing protocols again? I want to make sure I get everything right.” The conversation moved on to other things, but Donna was close to her usual vibrant self again when she left and CJ was pleased. 

The CODEL left early on a Saturday morning so as to maximize their useful week before Sabbath celebrations, and CJ, Josh and Toby were all there to see them off. CJ was wrangling the usual suspects from the press corps, and Toby and Josh seemed to mostly be there to aggravate the women in their lives. Andy did not seem to be feeling much charity towards Toby at the moment; she put up with him for about thirty seconds before giving him a brisk lecture on visiting his children, then boarding the plane where he couldn't follow her. Toby glowered up the airstairs, his hands shoved in his pockets, then headed back for the cars.

Donna at least let Josh follow her around the tarmac, giving her a dozen reminders of security protocols and a few completely nonsensical statistics about the safety of plane travel while she secured her luggage and talked with the congressional press liaison. Eventually though, she pulled Josh into a hug, told him he was being ridiculous, promised to email when she landed, then boarded the plane. Josh stood in almost the same position Toby had, but the look on his face was one CJ dearly hoped none of the press photographers noticed enough to capture. As the delegation finished boarding, Josh drifted over to CJ like a lost duckling, still watching the plane. She patted him on the back sympathetically and ignored the fact that Chris and Katie from the press pool were already laughing at them. As soon as the CODEL returned, she decided, she was locking Josh and Donna in a room until they got things sorted out. The lid wasn't going to stay on this for long at the rate Josh was going. 

With Donna gone and without an election to think about, Josh became, if anything, even more frenetic in his efforts. First thing Monday morning he barged into her office, past a few startled members of the press assembling for gaggle, and slammed the door behind him. “I think I should tell Leo now,” he declared. 

CJ sighed, wondering how she was going to explain away Josh's lunatic behavior to a bevy of curious reporters before she'd even had her second cup of coffee. “What do you want to tell Leo?” she asked. “Have the Mets finally decided to call you up from the farm team?” 

He glared at her. “This isn't funny, CJ.” 

“Laugh or cry,” she muttered. 

“I think the best way to approach this is for me to sit down with Leo, like men, and hash this out between us so that there's no miscommunication. I'll explain to him exactly how much I need Donna still working for me, but we can work out an on-paper transfer so that she's not going to be my direct report anymore. The Chief of Staff can have two senior assistants, so if she's technically working out of Leo's office but is my primary liaison, nothing really has to change except that I can get a new assistant to do all the typing and phone answering that Donna shouldn't even be bothering with anymore.” Josh was obviously very pleased with his brainstorm. 

“It's not a bad idea,” CJ allowed, reluctantly impressed. “I just have one very important question for you before we take it to Leo. Have you talked to Donna yet?” 

Josh shifted from foot to foot. “I talk to Donna all the time.” 

CJ gave him a look she usually reserved only for particularly obtuse members of the press corps. “Have you told her how you feel about her? Have you asked her how she feels about you? Have the two of you, together, like grown-up men and women, discussed what kind of relationship you would like to have, and whether Donna is ready to be transferred and face the heightened press scrutiny so you can start seeing each other?” 

“Ah, that talk. We're having that talk after the CODEL, remember?” Josh offered. Even he was not completely immune to the glare, though he made a good show of it. “I need a plan, CJ! I'm going nuts without a plan.” He sank down in her chair. “I should've done all this before the CODEL, then the plan would already be in place and I wouldn't be losing my mind over it now.” 

“Seven more days,” CJ reminded him, not unsympathetically. “And instead of planning on how you're going to break it to Leo, maybe you should be planning what you're going to do for Donna. I know you've got a sliver of a romantic soul deep inside you somewhere. You might as well put it to use in a good cause here.” 

“I'll call Sam.” Josh brightened. “Sam will know what to do, he's great at romance.” CJ put her head on the desk. “Terrible at women,” Josh allowed with a laugh, watching her, “but you have to admit he can pitch the woo.” 

“Go away,” she told him without lifting her head. “You have brought me my morning headache, Joshua, go and spread your migraine pixie dust elsewhere. And try not to do so many interesting things in front of the reporters, it just encourages them.” 

Two days later she was in her office when the phone rang. She recognized Marlena Welch, a producer at CNN who was generally a solid contact, if a tough bargainer. CJ picked up the phone immediately, wondering what was going to hit the airwaves at 8am on a Wednesday morning. Marlena didn't even wait for CJ to say hello. “CJ, there's been an incident with the CODEL in Gaza. Some kind of explosion, maybe a car bomb, maybe something roadside. We've got a crew on scene, they're reporting fatalities.” 

“Jesus Christ,” CJ murmured, looking through her open door at the bullpen beyond, down the hall to Josh's office. “Have you got any names?” 

“We've got almost nothing yet, but they're going live in ninety seconds. We need a White House response for this, and I'd like to get it first.” Marlena's tone was all business, just like CJ's. With reporters on the ground in what could suddenly be a war zone, they both had people in danger. 

“I need to know names right now,” CJ told her. “Everything you can, fast as you can. You know I'll trade back with whatever I've got.” Marlena agreed and hung up. “Carol!” Carol appeared in the doorway instantly, her eyes wide. “Get everybody in Communications moving, something's happening in Gaza and we need to know what. I want people on every phone until we have a clear idea of what's going on with the CODEL, and I want every news feed covered.” 

“What's going on?” Carol asked, even as she moved to pick up her phone and make the all-call. 

“There was an explosion, people are dead. We don't know much more than that.” CJ allowed herself ten seconds to calm her racing mind, then raced out of the office as her pager buzzed. She was too far away to catch Toby, who'd be watching CNN at this hour anyway, but she could at least be the one to tell Josh. 

She caught up with him just outside his office with Kate Harper on his heels. He looked concerned but nothing more; he hadn't heard. “What's up?” he asked.

CJ's stomach twisted as she looked him in the eye and imparted the news as quickly and precisely as she could. “Explosion in Gaza. The CODEL. Some fatalities.” She watched the blood drain from his face and wished there's been another way, but already the bullpen was starting to buzz with the news.

He stared at her, his eyes blank and uncomprehending. CJ wondered if he was going to fall down, and what would happen if he did. “Donna?” he asked, his voice choked. 

“It just happened, that's all I know.” He swayed in place, and suddenly Kate was there, catching him by the arm with deceptive strength. “Listen,” CJ told him, leaning in and putting a hand on his cheek to keep his eyes on hers. “I'm in contact with CNN, they're going to feed us information as soon as they get it. We don't know anything yet. Don't start thinking anything yet.” 

The lobby doors opened next to them and CJ looked up to see Toby walk in, looking as stunned and afraid as she'd ever seen him. They all stared at one another for a minute. “Let's get on the phones,” CJ told them both. “Somebody knows something.” 

Toby's first call was to Andy, of course, it rang and rang before dumping to voicemail. Josh called Donna; her phone didn't even ring before it sent him to her mailbox. That didn't stop either of them from trying again, even as CJ grabbed Carol and began to work the phones with her. Around them, the bullpen was steadily increasing chaos as CJ's assistant deputies and the Communications staff flooded into the most centralized location to coordinate a response. Marlena wasn't answering her phone, but CJ shamelessly bullied a production assistant into giving her the name and number of the field producer on the ground in Gaza. Someone got a confirmation from somewhere that two Congressmen were dead. She didn't even hear the cell phone until Toby called out Andy, and the entire bullpen quieted. 

Relief flooded through CJ at the news that Andy was all right, bolstered by the sight of her whole and unharmed on the live newsfeed. It was short-lived, though. Donna was in the car that had exploded, the one still visibly smoking on two live newscasts. Neither news crew was showing more than glimpses of the vehicle, which CJ understood meant that there were likely still bodies inside its hopelessly crushed and mangled frame. She thought about Admiral Fitzwallace, the only member of the Joint Chiefs who'd been friendly to the administration from the start, thought about how he'd always had a joke to break the tension, how he'd never stood on ceremony the way most high-level military officials did. Nobody had seen him in any of the live footage so far. She thought about Congressmen Korb and Desantos, largely undistinguished but with families she was going to have to learn about as soon as the smoke cleared. 

She thought about Donna, about seven years of friendship, about Donna as a wide-eyed and eager volunteer, as Josh's curious assistant, as his stalwart nurse, as his super-competent Girl Friday. Thought about the last conversation they'd had in her office, and how pleased she'd been at the idea that Donna was finally coming into her own. Had Donna taken that advice and experienced the world to the fullest in the days she'd spent in Gaza? Was that going to be her epitaph? She tried to shake off the dark thought but found her eyes drawn to Josh, standing unseeing in the middle of the bullpen, still frozen in the instant where Toby had told him Donna was in the car. 

There were another hundred phone calls CJ needed to make, and half a dozen people who were asking in her ear for directions. CJ ignored them all for the moment and walked over to Josh, putting a hand on his arm. He looked up at the television screen for a moment, then turned to her, the expression on his face pure devastation. “I sent her there,” he whispered, voice raw and ragged. “I sent her there and I never told her.” 

She wrapped her arms around him, let him hide his face in her shoulder as his body shook. For the moment CJ didn't give a damn who was watching or what questions they would ask. “We don't know anything yet,” she murmured in his ear, trying to remember it herself. “They took people in ambulances, so there must have been survivors. We're going to find who they are.” 

“I never told her,” he mumbled again, his voice muffled by her shoulder. “I told you and I was gonna tell Leo, but I never told her.” 

“She knew. She knows,” CJ murmured back, even though she had no idea if that was true or not. There was absolutely nothing else she could say in this situation. “You'll tell her as soon as you see her. Come on, Josh, I need your help here,” she reminded him. “Your title will open the doors, and we have a lot of calls to make. Can you do it?” 

“Yeah,” he rasped, pulling away from her and straightening up. He looked like hell, but determination had replaced most of the despair on his face. CJ nodded approval and walked him back to his office, then sent an intern to grab him a cup of coffee and an emergency call sheet. 

The morning briefing had CJ wishing she was allowed to carry a taser to work, but eventually she managed to beat the press corps into grumbling submission long enough to pass on some information. She made a note to have the guy who asked about Canadian pharmacies burned in effigy, but forgot it as soon as she stepped into her office and found Josh. “She's alive,” he said, his voice nearly a croak. CJ wondered how long he'd been on the phone. “I've got just- just nothing on her condition except that they stabilized her, not how badly she's hurt or what's hurt or anything, but she's alive.” He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles like an overtired child. “I talked to her folks, told them that much.” 

CJ hugged him again, this time in relief, and took a moment to smooth out his disastrous hair. “God, I'm so glad. Stable is good, it's really important. We'll find out more soon.” She drew back and looked at him. “Are you going to go to wherever they take her?” 

He looked agonized all over again. “I don't know if I can,” he admitted. “Look at everything that's happening. We might be at war right now and not even know it. I've gotta be there for Leo and the President, but if she's hurt or she's dy-” 

“We'll figure it out,” CJ told him again, giving his arm a little shake. “She's alive right now and that's what matters. You go back to your office and keep making calls, and we'll keep making them here, and we're going to find something out. Leo wants us ready for a meeting in the Oval in ten minutes, are you going to be up for it?” 

He swallowed and nodded. “Yeah, I'm okay. See you there.” There wasn't a lot of information that could be gathered in ten minutes, but what there was had been chewed over and regurgitated by the time the senior staff, plus Will Bailey and Kate Harper, gathered in the Outer Office. Donna had lost a lot of blood, Donna was being medevaced, Donna had been stabilized but was apparently not out of the woods yet. 

Leo gave them a quick precis of what was happening while they waited, which led to the inevitable arguments over Israel and Palestine. CJ left the argument mostly alone, tossing in a comment here or there but mostly watching her colleagues. Toby was simmering with rage, but it was the hopeless rage that came from decades of the same useless waste and violence over and over again. Will and Kate were mad at each other because the people they were really angry at were out of reach. Josh looked like he was ready to unspool completely, an observation he proved correct moments later when he began ranting about how they needed to kill anybody responsible for the bombing and anyone who was okay with it. CJ watched with concern as Leo sent them ahead and pulled Josh into the Mural Room, but she judged Leo's attitude to be more worry than anger. 

Leo's meeting was quick, the President hadn't even come in from the portico when Leo entered the Oval, sans Josh. “He's going to Germany,” Leo said to CJ's inquiring look. “He's no good to us here right now, he's gotta go.” 

CJ nodded agreement. “If I could have two minutes?” Leo nodded. CJ left the Oval Office and jogged down the hall, snaking through the Communications Bullpen and around the Press Office to save a few precious seconds. She caught up with Josh at his office where he was blindly shoving files into his backpack. 

He looked up when she came in. “I have to go.” 

“I know,” she assured him. “I'm glad you're going, you should.” She took a deep breath. “I'll probably hate myself later for saying this, but now is not the time to worry about the optics. You do and say whatever you both need to, and we'll figure it out later.” 

He paused, his hands frozen on files and bag. “How can I say anything to her?” he asked. “I sent her there, CJ, this is my fault. I don't deserve-” 

“Oh, shut up,” she snapped, which was enough to shock him into silence. CJ took two quick steps forward and grabbed him by both arms. “I know you feel guilty and I know you feel sorry, and that's stuff for you to work out with your therapist. You didn't send her there to die, you sent her there because you love her and you want her to be happy, and that's something she deserves to hear from you regardless of your misplaced guilt. She loves you, and she should know you feel the same way. When you get there and she's alive and awake and she wants to talk to you, everything is about her then, do you get it? You can't be thinking about what she needs if you're drowning yourself in remorse, so you've got until you get to Germany to get over it.” 

Josh looked stunned, then mad, then thoughtful, then determined. “So you're saying I've got about ten hours to undo a lifetime of conditioning?” he joked weakly. 

“You've always been a contrarian, I know you can do it.” CJ released her grip on his arms and smiled at him. “I've gotta get back. Call Carol if there's anything you need done with the plane tickets, she'll help you.” One last quick hug and then he was running out of the building backpack flapping behind him. CJ watched him go and said a little prayer, then headed back to work.


	3. Conviction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If there's one part of writing I'm really terrible at, it's knowing when I start out how long a story is going to be. (If there's another part, it's overuse of commas, but that's irrelevant right now!) This started out as a single stand-alone story, and then I was absolutely sure it was going to be a three-part story, except that when I went to write part three, it wound up being nearly 4000 words before I even got to the end of Memorial Day. So there will now be a fourth part coming up in a few days that should (I really hope) finish out this arc. Thank you to everyone who asked for more of this story, and thank you to everyone who has left kudos and feedback. You are all the best!

Josh remembered very little of the trip from DC to Germany, and what he did recall later was always vague and blurred. It was less memory and more a half-remembered nightmare, characterized mostly by the overpowering sensation that things were taking too long and he was running out of time. He remembered car horns from the drive to his house, when he nearly caused an accident by turning against a light. He remembered the look of his own hands desperately tossing things into a suitcase without rhyme or reason. Clean underwear, socks, something to sleep in. The sweatshirt Donna liked to wear when his air conditioner was too cold, a book he'd planned to give her for her birthday, his laptop full of her emails. He remembered calling Carol and realizing that even during a national crisis, CJ was ahead of him; Carol read him off the details of the flight she'd already booked him. Metro to the airport, just a flash of noise and motion, and an endless, horrible wait in the airport. He remembered sitting in a seat without moving a muscle, eyes closed, trying to remember how to pray.

The flight itself was a season in purgatory. Nine hours to fly, with a tailwind even, and no power on earth could make it any shorter. The flight attendants offered drinks and he thought about taking one, but her voice whispered in his ear, teasing him about his delicate system. He wondered what stable really meant in this context, wondered if Leo or CJ would arrange a call to the cockpit if something were to happen and all that would be waiting in Germany was a turnaround in the airport and the end of everything. The thought tightened his stomach beyond the point of eating or drinking, so he sat and read her emails, over and over again, passing the hours with her words. He dimly remembered joking with Toby about her verbosity, maybe this morning but it seemed like a very long time ago. Now the words were a lifeline and he wished for twice as many. He wished she'd written to him every day, even in DC, so he could read a record of their days in her voice. He wished he'd written back to her, more than the couple of lines to acknowledge receiving the email. He wished he hadn't been such a goddamned coward, wished he'd told her how he felt weeks ago, wished he'd said hell with it and sent Jack Sosa to Gaza because what in God's name had he been thinking? 

Let it go, he reminded himself, gripping the armrests and staring blankly at the computer screen. He could beat himself up later, in private, after he was sure she was okay. CJ was right; Donna needed to be his focus now, not all the ways he had failed Donna. And no matter what, he swore, if she'd just be okay, he'd do better this time. The seatbelt light blinked back on, and a flight attendant announced the beginning of their descent. Josh closed his laptop, closed his eyes. He kept on praying. 

Landstuhl Medical Center looked different, was in a different country, but damned if it didn't smell exactly like George Washington Hospital in DC. The smell was enough to check Josh's pace for half a moment as he pushed through the doors, but he ignored it and headed straight for reception. His breathing was ragged as he got on the elevator, some combination of exhaustion, fear, and the memories of his last long hospital stay. Pull it together, he reminded himself. He'd be no good to her if he fell apart now. His plan had been some vague idea of checking every room on the floor until he found the one Donna was in, but he was halted quickly by a horrible and completely unreasonable woman at the nurse's station who insisted on calling a doctor over. When it looked as though he'd ignore her, she at least had the courtesy to tell him that Donna was alive, Donna was sleeping now, and if he went barging in now, he might wind up barred from the hospital. 

Josh dropped his jacket and backpack on the floor in mute protest and began pacing. Hadn't he had a suitcase at the start of this trip? He must have left it at the airport, he realized belatedly. At the moment, it was far from his most pressing concern. The doctor was much too young, Josh decided instantly upon meeting him. How could he be any good at surgery when he'd apparently graduated college fifteen minutes ago? Was being a colonel even very good? Josh knew something about military ranks, he should've been able to make more sense of this, but nothing seemed to be connecting quite right in his brain. The doctor-colonel, whose name Josh had already forgotten, reeled off a list of injuries that Josh couldn't understand, except that it involved a broken leg somehow. “Sorry? I...” 

“Collapsed lung, broken thighbone.” Josh could at least understand those injuries. He resisted the urge put his hand to his own chest and take deeper breaths, forced himself not to think about the choked, panicky struggle to breathe. There were times, most of the time really, that he could remember without reliving. Tonight was probably not one of those times. But a collapsed lung could be reinflated and fixed, it wasn't something you died of once you were already safely in the hospital. It was okay. He asked about the broken leg instead, and was immediately sorry he had. 

“A compound fracture is one where the bone protrudes through the skin. And this was a multiple, so that meant-” Josh's thoughts immediately went to Donna's legs, how beautiful they were. Not in a lascivious way, even, but to how gracefully she moved around his office, how she could curl those long legs up so neatly into the corner of a couch or a seat on the bus, the way she could dance when she was happy and excited. And yes, he'd had fantasies about running his hands up those long, supple legs, over her thighs, how could he not? He thought of the broken ankle he'd gotten playing touch football in high school, and how bright and sickening the pain had been, radiating through his whole body. To break a bone so badly that pieces of it, multiple pieces of it, were sticking out through the skin... He felt the blood leave his face and tried not to lose his balance. Keep it together, he reminded himself, but most of his brain was no longer willing to cooperate. “Are you all right?” he heard the doctor saying. 

“Yeah, fine, I'm fine,” he heard himself saying, as though he were listening to a recording. “You fixed it, right? You fixed the-the-the bone and everything?” How did you even fix something like that? Was that how she'd lost all the blood, through the wounds made by her own shattered bones? 

“The main surgical repairs went well,” the doctor said from the end of a long tunnel. “We inserted a metal rod through the bone-” and that was really quite enough for Josh, who sat down suddenly on the floor of the hallway and tried to take deep breaths. There was a flurry of activity around him, somebody putting fingers on his wrist, somebody pressing a paper cup of water into his hand. 

“I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay,” Josh muttered. “Just a little queasy. Is she going to be okay?” 

“At the moment I'm more worried about you,” Doctor-Colonel Whatsisname said, sounding too detached and amused for Josh's taste. “Are you feeling dizzy? Nauseous?” 

“Please,” Josh said, forcing his head up so he could look the doctor in the eye. “Is she going to be okay?” 

“She's going to be okay,” the doctor said, and Josh felt something inside himself unknot. “She's got a lot of physical therapy ahead of her for that leg, but considering the severity of the crash, she's very lucky. Would you like to see her?” 

Josh was nodding vigorously before the words even finished processing. “Yes, please.” He accepted the doctor's hand to get to his feet, then grabbed his bag and followed him down the hall. He'd never be able to find his way out without a map; he didn't absorb a single detail or turn along the way, but it didn't matter because suddenly he was in a surprisingly spacious hospital room and Donna was in the bed in front of him. Donna alive, Donna with cuts and bruises on her face and her leg bracketed by metal restraints, Donna with an oxygen cannula feeding her air because her lung had collapsed, Donna whose chest rose and fell softly as she breathed, Donna with whom it was not too late after all. 

Josh barely noticed the doctor leaving, so intent was he upon memorizing every detail of her face. She looked almost normal from the neck up, a few cuts that were probably from flying glass, a bruise along one cheekbone and another in her hairline. Her blonde hair was stained faintly red in places from washed-out blood. He could see more bruises edging the neckline of her hospital gown, and imagined that her entire torso was probably black and blue. The car had flipped over from the explosion, he knew from the glimpses that had burned themselves into his memory. Donna always wore her seatbelt, so she'd have been hanging from it until they could cut her out. He wondered if she'd been awake, wondered if she'd been afraid. But that was too painful to think about right now, so he pushed it from his mind. He couldn't do more than glance at her leg. Passing out now would be counterproductive. 

He found the visitor's chair and dragged it next to the bed so he could sit down next to her and take her hand. It felt a little weird to lift her limp arm off her stomach, and he wasn't a hundred percent certain he was allowed, but he absolutely had to touch her and reassure himself that she was really there. Donna's fingers were surprisingly warm in his cold hands, completely limp but definitely alive. He squeezed them very gently, in case there were bruises there, too. “Hi,” he murmured, lifting her hand to press his lips lightly against her knuckles. “I don't want to wake you up, but I'm so glad you're still here.” He paused for a second and had to swallow. “I know it hurts and it's gonna suck, but you do need to wake up soon, okay? I'll wait right here for you.” He sat and watched her till he fell asleep counting her breaths.

It was morning in Germany and the jet lag was really starting to set in before Donna woke up. Josh had been nudged aside by a nurse, who bribed him with a muffin to move out of the way long enough to check Donna's IV lines and vitals. Something the nurse was doing must have bumped or hurt a little, enough to have Donna moaning softly in complaint. The nurse gently chivvied her awake and went to get some water while Josh approached the bed. Her eyes were half-open and not focusing spectacularly well, but she gave him a puzzled little smile as he approached and murmured hello to her. 

Her smile melted away as she got a better look at him, giving way to a shadow of the disapproving glare he usually got when he did something particularly egregious. “What happened to you?” she demanded. 

“To me?” he repeated dumbly. 

“You need to shave.” Her facial expression said that this was shorthand for all his many sins of appearance: the wrinkled suit, the disordered hair, the bags under his eyes. Donna would not let him go around looking like a scarecrow if she had any say in the matter. All he could do was laugh a little. Her frown increased as she looked around and saw nothing familiar. “Where am I?” 

“In Germany,” he explained, taking the cup from the nurse and helping Donna to get a drink from it as they both fielded more questions. Donna was still only half-conscious and very disoriented, but at least she was awake and talking, and able to push her own clicker button. Josh flinched as the nurse produced a syringe with a needle that was really a lot longer than he thought was necessary. 

“Do you need to step out?” she asked. 

“Nope, I'm good,” he promised. He hooked a foot under the chair and dragged it back to the side of the bed so he could sit down and take Donna's hand again, resting his cheek against it while he looked away. It was a posture he'd taken several times in the night, but this time she flexed her fingers against his skin, half-turning her hand in his grip. 

“Scratchy,” Donna observed disapprovingly. She still didn't pull her hand away. 

Josh laughed. “I promise I'm going to shave, seriously,” he told her. “You don't have to keep harping on it.” 

“Only way you get stuff done,” she pointed out, her words garbling rapidly. In a few moments she was back to sleep again. 

“That's normal, right?” he asked the nurse worriedly.

“Mm-hmm,” she assured him. “She'll be more asleep than awake for a little while yet. By this afternoon she should be a little more coherent. Colonel Leahy will stop by in a few hours to look her over again.” The nurse finished her work and headed out. Josh was reluctant to stop holding Donna's hand, and she was currently in morphine-clicker sleep, so he made his calls quietly from her bedside, talking to Toby about work, returning Sam's worried call from California. An amused orderly dropped by with a disposable razor and a bar of soap, so he took care of that, too. Then he watched the news. 

It wasn't as hard as he'd thought it might be to find English-language news in Germany, especially at the military hospital. The news itself was pretty grim. Palestinian-Israeli violence was already scaling up, and Americans were not happy with the President's address on the subject. He caught a repeat of CJ's morning briefing and learned that James Holtman, the other survivor of the bombing, had died of his injuries overnight. He had been twenty-six. Donna was now completely unique in her survival. 

He watched a network talking-head analyze the bombing and its effects, using a cutaway animation of a van to illustrate his points. Every time he said a name, a body in outline would appear in the van. James Holtman, a Congressional aide, had been driving the Suburban, with Admiral Percy Fitzwallace in the front passenger seat. Congressman Tom Korb was seated behind the Admiral, while Congressman Daniel Desantos sat in the third row driver's side seat. Senior White House Aide Donna Moss, the only survivor, had been sitting in the second row on the driver's side. Josh couldn't help but flinch slightly as a slightly smaller, female body outline joined the others already in the van. The animation changed then, the cutaway closing up to create a full van, which then began driving. He flinched again at the bright orange illustration of the explosion, which had come on the driver's side, and could barely watch the strange, paradoxical spin as the van's wheels were literally blown out from under it, sending it ten feet in the air and actually rolling it in the direction of the explosion before dropping it onto its canopy with crushing force. Josh turned off the news. 

He walked back to Donna's bedside, staring at her battered face. There was no way she should have survived that crash. All the odds and every bit of common sense argued against it. She had been surrounded on all sides save one by men who'd died, and from the remaining side had come the explosion itself. By every account, by the laws of physics, by the rules of horrible probability that had governed his life up to this point, Josh should've been alone today. He dropped into the chair beside the bed and took her hand again, pressing her palm to his face, his fingers encircling her wrist to feel her pulse. He could've been alone today. He could've been too late. 

“Josh?” he heard Donna murmur, and opened his eyes to see her watching him with eyes that were a little less cloudy than before. “Are you okay?” 

“Yeah,” he managed to croak, mustering a smile for her. “See, I shaved and everything.” 

He could tell by the look on her face that she didn't remember the earlier conversation, but she smiled at him anyway and brushed her fingers against his cheek. “I see that. Still look kinda rough.” 

“I'm working on a ruggedly masculine look,” he told her with a soft grin, not letting go of her hand. “How are you feeling?” She didn't answer, but slanted him a look that told him not to ask stupid questions. Just that much was enough to lighten his heart a little. “Listen, your mom's on her way. She's flying into New York, then getting on another plane. She'll be here tonight.” 

“That's a long way.” A new thought seemed to strike her. “How long are you staying?” 

“Oh, I like it here,” he assured her. “Great weather, tourist attractions. I've been looking at rental properties, maybe a nice pied-a-terre in town.” 

Donna blinked slowly. “Leo doesn't need you?” 

“I'm here as long as you want me here,” he promised, scooting his chair close enough to bring them eye to eye. “Leo will be fine. This is where I need to be.” She studied him intently for a moment and he thought about saying more, but not yet. Not when she was still so foggy. “Um, they sent up a lunch tray a little while ago. Looks yummy.” That was a flat-out lie, but he was a politician, after all. 

She grimaced. “Nuh-uh. Not hungry. I feel kinda nauseous.” He was glancing around anxiously for a bowl when the phone in his pocket began to ring, the ridiculous samba melody Donna had programmed especially to annoy him. She gave him a skeptical look. “You supposed to have that here?” 

“They haven't taken it away yet,” he told her, grinning more broadly now. “It's CJ.” 

“Tell her I said hi, okay?” Donna closed her eyes again. 

“Okay. I'll be right back.” Not wanting to disturb her, Josh squeezed her hand once more, then took the phone into the hallway to answer it. “She's awake,” he told CJ without preamble, without bothering to conceal his ragged-edged joy. 

“Oh, thank god.” CJ's relief was obvious even over the international phone connection. “Can I talk to her?” 

“Try again in a few hours,” he advised. “The medication's making her queasy and I don't want her to hork on my phone.” 

CJ laughed. “Yeah, okay. Did you talk to her?” 

“I told her I'm staying as long as she wants me.” 

There was a quiet moment. “Do you think she realized that was a proposal?” 

Josh paused, blinked. He hadn't quite realized it himself, but he couldn't deny it either. “I think we might have to work our way in that direction. Her leg's really messed up, she's still on a lot of morphine.” 

“You'll get there,” CJ assured him. “Have you been watching the news?” 

“Had to turn it off,” he admitted. “They kept doing those virtual reconstructions...” 

“They're a bunch of ghouls,” she agreed sympathetically. “But I meant about the backlash against the address. Do you think we need to-” 

“You need to come out fighting,” he advised, then was suddenly distracted when someone in his peripheral vision paused at the door to Donna's room. He looked over, did a double-take. “Hey CJ, I'm gonna call you back in a few minutes, okay? And tell Toby that Andy's here.” 

“Andy?” CJ asked curiously, but Josh was already hanging up. 

Andrea Wyatt looked no worse for her recent proximity to disaster, dressed in a slightly wrinkled pantsuit and carrying a potted African violet. She grinned at him. “Why Joshua Lyman, as I live and breathe.” 

“Congresswoman Wyatt,” Josh replied with a half-smile. “You're a long way from Maryland.  
I didn't realize they'd evacuated everyone here.” 

“They didn't,” she murmured, her smile falling away. “But I offered to escort Jamie's body to Landstuhl this morning. He was never stable enough to medevac, and they brought all the bodies here before sending them back stateside. Dan was a friend of mine, and I knew Jamie a little.” 

“I'm sorry,” Josh told her quietly. 

“It's a hell of a thing, Josh,” she told him with a heavy sigh. “I can't stop hearing the explosion in my head.” 

Impulsively he reached out and hugged her, not too surprised when she stepped into it and clung tightly. He wondered how much Andy had slept since it all happened, wondered how much Toby had slept. “It'll get better,” he promised her. “Be careful you don't squish your flowers there.” 

Andy laughed, her voice watery. “Hospital gift shop,” she explained. “Donna and I spent a lot of time together on the trip. The night before... you know, we stayed up late and split a bottle of wine in my hotel room because there's no public drinking. Mostly we complained about men, but I felt like we were becoming friends, and then this happened. How is she?” 

“She's going to be okay,” Josh told her, and just being able to say that was sweet. “She's kind of drifting in and out right now, you can go in and say hi.” 

“I'll do that. How long have you been here?” Andy asked curiously. 

“I got in last night, but she only woke up this morning. The surgeries and all that stuff went well,” he replied. 

“Last night? You must've been on the first plane out of National.” Andy observed knowingly. 

He didn't bother to deny it. “I had to be here.” 

“Good for you.” Andy patted his cheek and grinned. “I knew you'd get your head out of your ass eventually.” Without giving him time to come up with a response, she swept into the room, leading with the pot of violets. Josh stared after her for a minute, then shook his head and called CJ back.


	4. The Wise Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we've finally reached the end of the Gaza arc! As usual, I ended up writing longer than I planned, but I was determined not to split it up again, so enjoy your extra-long fourth chapter. :) I'm going to disclaim mastery of the medical stuff right away, and can only defend myself with the fact that I'm pretty sure the people writing the show weren't actually making any sense either. I work with what I'm given! In any case, I hope you all have enjoyed this story, it's been a lot of fun to write. Tell me what you thought, feedback is always lovely and especially at the end of a story. 
> 
> (Disclaimer: This story contains dialogue taken verbatim from the West Wing episodes Memorial Day and NSF Thurmont. No commercial use is being made of this story and all rights remain with their owners.)

Donna slept for most of the afternoon, which Colonel Leahy assured Josh was both normal and beneficial. When she was awake she was in a considerable amount of pain, so Josh's frazzled nerves tended to agree with the doctor's assessment. Andy stayed for a few hours, watching the news with Josh and keeping him company, but she was exhausted from the past few days and had a hotel room in Landstuhl proper calling her name. Josh was rather surprised when his suitcase showed up around dinnertime, but availed himself of the chance to shower in the bathroom of Donna's room and change into clean clothes so Donna would stop heckling him about his scruffiness whenever she was awake.

Honestly, though, even the heckling was good. She was getting more lucid every time she woke up, and staying awake a little longer each time. At this rate, he figured that by morning she'd probably be completely herself again and ready for a real talk. The idea was terrifying and thrilling all at once. Josh had given Sam a call earlier in the week, before everything had gone to hell, and gotten Sam's enthusiastic advice on setting the perfect romantic scene for a declaration of one's affections. Oddly enough, “hospital room in Germany” hadn't even made the short list. He was pretty sure candles would cause problems with the hospital staff, not to mention with Donna's fragile lungs, and the scattered bouquets from well-wishers were a poor substitute for a walk in the Rose Garden. Not that she'd be doing much walking anytime soon. But he might be able to figure out some music, and something more appetizing than hospital food to eat, and that would be something. It seemed important to let her know he'd thought about this, that it wasn't some kind of impulsive declaration just because she was hurt.

A soft moan from the other room let him know she was awake again. Josh hurried in from the bathroom, wiping toothpaste from the edges of his mouth. Donna had her eyes mostly closed but she was patting the bed around her fretfully. “Where's the... where's the thing?”

“The morphine? Right here,” He put the clicker into her hand and closed her fingers around it. Immediately she began pressing it over and over again, as though it were a pump instead of a switch. “I think it only works the first time,” he told her gently.

“That's not fair.” She opened her eyes now, they were dull with pain as she looked at him. “It still hurts.”

Josh felt the guilt rising up to try and swamp him again, but he pushed it away, remembering CJ's angry-shouty version of a pep talk. Instead he smiled and wrapped his hand around hers. “Yeah, it sucks,” he agreed. “You remember how I was?”

That drew a little smile out of her. “You said it was a fake button,” she remembered. “And you tried to throw it at the nurse.”

“Yeah, not one of my finer moments,” he agreed, running his thumb lightly over her knuckles. “But I figure I set the bar pretty low, so whatever you do, you'll probably still be a better patient than me. Are you thirsty?”

She nodded slightly and reached for the cup when he brought it over, managing to hold onto it with just a little help while she sipped. “Your mom got onto the plane just fine in New York,” he reported. “I think she might go to the hotel for a couple hours of sleep when she lands, though. I don't think she's slept in a long time, and it's going to be like three in the morning here when she gets in.”

“Have you been sleeping?” she asked, giving control of the cup back to him and settling back against the pillow.

“Oh yeah,” he lied glibly. He was a politician, after all. “Mostly in chairs and stuff, but I've done okay.” Truthfully, he'd gotten about ninety minutes earlier when Andy was around, then woken up with a back so cricked that he could barely move his neck. He was growing unconscionably old. “Andy went to her hotel for awhile to get some sleep. She's going to come by again before her plane leaves tomorrow.”

Donna gave him the look that said she wasn't buying a penny's worth of what he was selling. He was saved by an orderly entering with another bunch of flowers. They'd been coming in all day, a huge arrangement from the White House that had to sit on the floor, some from members of Donna's family, others from news organizations or political groups looking for a story. Josh stood and took the flowers, setting them on the nearest table. “Hey look, you've got more admirers,” he told her.

“Really?” she asked, shifting uncomfortably in the bed. The collapsed lung meant she had to sleep in an elevated position, but that made for sore muscles very quickly. Josh remembered that part too, but at least he'd been able to move his legs. “Pretty. Who's it from?”

“Maybe one of the doctors around here has a crush on you and I'll have to smack him around a little,” Josh suggested, wriggling the card out of the envelope. It was covered in strange symbols. The other side had a message in English, but it was cryptic, even foreboding. “Okay, this is sort of weird.”

“What?” she asked. The morphine was kicking in again, he could tell by the way her face relaxed. He read the card to her and she shook her head; she didn't understand what it might mean either.

Josh called hospital security to examine the flowers, and then he called the White House. Within ten minutes, they had a language specialist translating the card and intelligence agents in DC analyzing the contents for possible clues or threats. Josh refused to leave Donna's room the entire time, more than a little concerned that the card might have been a veiled death threat, and that whoever planted the bomb was somehow nearby and hoping for a chance to finish their work. It made absolutely no sense, but that didn't keep him from staring anxiously out the window as he talked to Kate Harper on the phone.

After all that, it turned out that the card was some kind of clandestine invitation on behalf of Palestinian Prime Minister Mukarat, who was apparently looking for a meeting with Josh. Josh had pointed out, several times, that he did not have the foreign policy or secret agent experience to be taking clandestine meetings in Germany, but Kate seemed convinced that it wouldn't be particularly dangerous. And maybe it didn't seem that way to somebody who had their entire personnel file redacted for an excess of excitement, but in Josh's world, a dangerous day was one where he missed his turnoff on Dupont Circle or had to talk to Leo before the coffee kicked in. Donna wasn't helping much either, somehow managing to make pithy comments despite being only half-awake and still in pain. Despite his reticence, Kate finally not only insisted that he take the meeting, but extracted a promise that he would not try any tactics he'd seen in spy movies for any reason.

“Takes the fun out of it,” Donna commented after he passed that tidbit along.

“You're telling me,” he agreed. “How do you think I'd look with a fake mustache?”

She blew a faint but recognizable raspberry. He laughed. “I like your face the way it is,” she told him.

His heart swelled as he reached out to brush her hair back from her brow, carefully avoiding the tubes from the oxygen feed. “I like your face too,” he told her, letting his fingers linger at her temple for a moment.

Donna pouted. “Pretty banged up now.” She'd asked for a mirror last time she was awake, and been less than thrilled with the sight.

“You're gorgeous,” he assured her, gratified when she smiled at him again. He thought about ignoring his plan and just having that talk with her now despite the fact that she couldn't even say a full sentence at a time, but then another couple of agent-types came in to dust the flowers for prints or whatever the hell they were doing, and sense reasserted itself. He'd waited this long, and she was still improving quickly. Josh found he didn't mind the idea of making Donna gasp for air in a number of different circumstances, but this particular one wasn't what he had in mind.

Either the flowers had been delayed in transit or whoever sent the card had a high opinion of American intelligence operations, but the time written on the card meant Josh didn't have much time to hang around before heading off for spy duty. He brushed the wrinkles out of his suitcoat as best he could, then put his overcoat on and managed to look halfway respectable. Donna reminded him to fix his hair, and then there was really no way to put things off any longer.

“I'll be back in a couple hours,” he told her, leaning down to brush a kiss over her forehead. She looked surprised but not displeased, he decided. “Don't go causing a lot of trouble while I'm gone, okay? Do your breathing exercises.”

“Bleah,” she replied, grinning faintly.

“Yeah, I remember that part too. I also remember you didn't let me skip them even once, so be prepared.” Donna made a breathy noise that was almost a chuckle and reached up to squeeze his fingers. By then he was absolutely running late and really had to go, after stopping long enough to make sure that there'd be someone keeping an eye on her door just in case this was all some kind of elaborate feint. He didn't care if they thought he was crazy; he wouldn't go and leave her unprotected.

Engaging in covert international diplomacy was a pretty surreal experience. It was also, Josh quickly discovered, more boring than he'd thought it would be. He had a basic grasp of Israeli-Palestinian politics, as much as any educated Jewish man, and he'd been keeping up with the news for the past few days, but he was no Leo or Kate Harper. Luckily, most of what he needed to do was just pass on a message from Prime Minister Mukarat to President Bartlet about the possibility of arranging secret peace talks. Bullshit talks, in Josh's opinion, but again, they didn't pay him to make foreign policy decisions. Under the circumstances, he was happy to let Kate debrief him over the phone, then head back to the hospital.

He was about to hail a cab and begin the arduous process of pretending he remembered some German again when he noticed the florist shop still open across from the restaurant. That, he decided, was a brilliant idea. He hadn't gotten flowers for Donna yet anyway, and flowers were romantic, so it was really a doubly good plan. In less than ten minutes, he was the proud owner of two dozen red roses and absolutely determined not to think of what the currency conversion fees were going to be from his credit card company. He hoped Donna was awake so he could come up with some story that made all of this sound a lot more exciting and sexy than it actually had been.

By now he was able to find Donna's room without needing a guide, but when he got there, the door was closed. Maybe she was asleep again. He rapped his knuckles against it twice before pushing it open. The bed was gone. That was the first thing he noticed and it was startling, baffling, but then his eyes fell upon the debris on the floor and his heart stopped. Blood. There was blood all over, on gauze pads and gloves, covering a discarded sheet and drying in a pool on a pillow. Medical equipment, the morphine clicker, all of it abandoned like evidence at a crime scene. Josh stood and stared at it all for a moment, beyond comprehension, then turned and broke into a run for the nurses' station.

The next few minutes were blurry, a maze of corridors and faces he didn't recognize. Josh heard himself yelling at a nurse, felt his body carrying him towards the surgical suites without completely making the connection to anything she said. He had to get to Donna and that was all that mattered, but this seemed like a living nightmare and he was losing track of what was real. Part of him waited with sickening dread for the sound of sirens while the rest of him remained frozen with fear of a trauma that was all too real and present.

He almost didn't stop when the doctor yelled at him, but he did recognize Colonel Leahy, scrubbed and prepped for surgery. The colonel would know what was happening. He turned to face the doctor in time to hear him say “There's been a complication. She developed a pulmonary embolism. It's a-”

“Blood clot,” Josh murmured along with the doctor. Suddenly he was in a hotel room in Illinois, surrounded by music and celebrating people but entirely numb inside. Donna was there, standing in front of him with sorrow and love in her eyes (had it really been love there, even all the way back then?), telling him _it was a pulmonary embolism, very quick and unexpected. You need to call your mom._

“We're trying to remove it now,” Leahy told him, then disappeared into the operating theater. Josh stared through the window and could see Donna, her eyes closed and her face slack, covered in a surgical drape as the doctors tried to save her life one more time. He stayed at the window, not really seeing anything, till a nurse came along and escorted him, unprotesting, to a bench in the hallway.

After awhile, he had no idea how long, he realized he should probably call somebody and tell them... something. CJ was the first person to call whenever something terrible happened, so he called her. He didn't remember much of the conversation even as it was happening. He remembered her horrified voice, and her attempting to comfort him, then commanding him to stay where he was. He thought maybe he'd suggested he should try and go back to the operating room, but that was not a good idea. CJ would tell the people who needed to know things. That was her job, after all.

There was a television overhead and he looked at that for awhile, but couldn't really engage with it at all. Andy came in, looking rumpled from sleep and without any makeup. She sat down next to him and held his hand for awhile while he stared at the floor. Eventually the doctor came back out, looking professionally concerned, but without the distantly empathetic sorrow Josh had been dreading. “Miss Moss was experiencing shortness of breath and chest pains,” he explained to Josh and Andy. “Her CT scan revealed a clot in her right lung. She asked to see you for a moment before we put her under.”

“I'll wait for you here,” Andy told Josh, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Tell her I said good luck.”

Josh nodded and followed the doctor, his thoughts churning. “I thought she was under already? I thought... what are you doing now?”

“We were able to start dissolving the clot while she was unconscious,” Colonel Leahy explained as they walked, “but the pressure and the coughing aggravated the traumatic pneumothorax. We had to remove the chest tube in order to deal with the clot, now we need to go in surgically and reduce the pleural space and allow the lung to re-expand. It's a fairly quick procedure, but the anticoagulant drugs make things a little more difficult. You're going to have to gown up before you go in there.” He nodded to a nurse, who began helping Josh into a bewildering amount of gear. Pants, shirt, hat, booties, latex gloves, a face mask. Josh knew he'd had more questions, but by the time he was garbed up and they were leading him into the room, he'd forgotten them all. “Just a couple minutes,” Leahy reminded him. “She's very nervous, it would help if you could calm her down.”

Josh nodded and walked up to the side of the bed. The room seemed cold, much too cold for Donna to be laying there with her shoulders and arms exposed. Her hair was covered in a blue shower cap and an oxygen mask seemed to swallow up most of her face, all but her eyes that locked onto his as soon as he came near. She couldn't talk, he realized, seeing the paper and pen in her hand. In the background he could hear her heart monitor, steady, but still a little faster than it should've been, especially given that she was probably still partially sedated.

“Hey,” he murmured, keeping his voice as easy and comforting as he could, considering how his own heart was racing.“I just talked to the doctor, they said it's no big deal.”

She blinked at him and wrote something on her notepad. Big, blocky letters very unlike her usual distinctive penmanship, but very readable. _Nice hat!_ It was so unexpected and yet so perfectly Donna that he had to laugh. “Yeah, stylish, huh? He tell you what they're gonna do?” She nodded fractionally, the monitor beginning to pick up a little speed. Josh put a hand on her arm and felt goosebumps there. “It's going to be a snap.”

Donna wrote on the pad again, turned it to face him. _Scared._ The single word was like a punch in his gut, and doubly so when he saw the tears gathering in her eyes. “Yeah,” he whispered, putting his hand over hers. He didn't think he'd ever hated anything so much as the thin latex glove that kept him from actually being able to touch her.

Instead he crouched down, bringing his face close to hers. “Don't be. You're gonna be fine, okay? And this is not a great time to be telling you this, but I love you, and you're gonna be fine. I wanted to say it before and I was going to say it tonight, and so I'm saying it now. I've loved you for a long time, and I'm going to be right there waiting for you when you come out.”

She stared at him, the heart rate monitor picking up even a little more speed, and it occurred to Josh that this might not have been what the doctor had in mind. “Okay Donna, it's time now,” the anesthesiologist said, too cheerfully, but Donna batted his hand aside impatiently and began scribbling again. She ripped the paper off the pad and handed it to Josh, her eyes intent on his. _Love you too._

“Okay,” he said, feeling his chest unknot and knot up again all at once. “I'm going to be right outside.” Josh let himself be pushed aside by the doctors as they swarmed in once more, but he kept watching her until the drugs took effect and her eyelids fluttered shut again. He wound up back outside the OR without even realizing it, Donna's note still clutched in his hand.

He was still holding onto it an hour later, back in the corridor with Andy, reading it over and over again while he waited for any kind of news. He wished he could concentrate on the last three words, words that could change his entire life, but he couldn't get past the single word on the second line. The fact that she was unconscious didn't seem to matter. Donna was alone, and afraid, and in pain, and he couldn't do anything to help her except sit and wait. Andy, being a good friend and a perceptive judge of people, started an argument with him about welfare-to-work legislation in the House. Political wrangling was the only thing that could hold his attention at this point, and even then his arguments were more halfhearted and disjointed than usual.

He was trying to come up with the figures for single mother heads of households when his attention was entirely diverted by Colonel Leahy's voice. “Mr. Lyman.” Josh's chest tightened. The operation should be done with, but that wasn't a happy good news voice. That was a something bad voice.

Josh rocketed to his feet, Andy right behind him with a supportive hand on his arm. “How's she doing?” he asked.

Colonel Leahy's face was impossible to read. “We encountered a few difficulties during the procedure. She lost a substantial amount of blood. We had to transfuse and call in a vascular surgeon to repair the tear.”

Josh could dimly feel Andy tightening her fingers and asking “What does that mean?”

The colonel sighed, and Josh felt his stomach plummet towards the floor. “Right now she's still unconscious, but as soon as she's stabilized, we'll send her for an MRI. Between the anemia and low blood pressure, she may have suffered hypoxic brain injury. Decreased oxygen delivery can result in brain damage.” All of a sudden, it felt like Andy's arm was the only thing holding him up at all. She guided him back to the bench and helped him sit down before his legs gave way entirely. The doctor was saying more, but Josh couldn't pay attention to any of it, locked in the horror of those last two sentences.

What would it even mean for Donna to have brain damage? He couldn't fathom it. So much of who Donna was came from her sharp mind and quick wit, her keen intuition for people and situations. Thinking of her without any of that was wrong, almost obscene. He knew he'd love her no matter what happened, he was too far gone for that to change now. But what if she couldn't love him back? What if she couldn't even recognize him? What if she never woke up at all? Leo called while they were still in the hallway and Josh talked to him for a little bit, but Leo wanted to talk about the bombers and Palestine and how they were going to make a strike against the people who had done this to Donna, and Josh didn't care about any of that anymore. His righteous wrath was gone, leaving him burned over in its wake.

He lost track of time while waiting again, maybe even slept a little though he couldn't be sure. He roused from his stupor when Donna was brought back to her room, still unconscious, this time with even more tubes, wires and machines surrounding her. The MRI was promising, the doctor told them, with no visible damage to the brain tissue, but the real test would come when she woke up, probably in the next 24-72 hours. Josh marveled at how normal she looked, how nobody would ever be able to tell what kind of danger she was in.

Not even an hour after the move to the room, Donna's mother arrived from the airport, beyond exhausted, beyond worried. Josh hadn't seen Leonora Moss since the Wisconsin leg of the second campaign, but he remembered clearly how much she looked like her daughter, just twenty-five years older and with much darker hair. She took one long, long look at her somnolent daughter, then turned and threw herself into Josh's arms. “Oh god, Joshua, please tell me she's going to be all right.”

Josh's arms went around her automatically, his eyes still focused on Donna. “She's going to be fine, Mrs. Moss,” he promised. “Everything's going to be fine.”

They waited, all through another endless day and night. Josh managed to get Leonora (“Call me Nora”) to spend a few hours at the hotel sleeping with the promise that the doctor said it would still be at least a day. Andy finally had to leave the hospital and fly back to the States. She hated to go, but Josh understood. Too much was happening in the world for a Congresswoman to be absent from her post, and the administration needed all the allies it could get. He hugged her and thanked her for being there, and she hugged him back and told him to take care and be strong.

Through the afternoon he waited at Donna's bedside alone, occasionally dozing in the chair, mostly watching the news or talking to Toby and CJ. Talking to Toby was good because it gave his mind something to focus on besides the life-or-death drama occurring so slowly in that hospital room. CJ was good because she made him feel like he wasn't alone in that room. Nora was back at suppertime, looking more rested and considerably more formidable. She nagged the staff into rolling a cot into the room, then bullied Josh into laying down on it while she sat by Donna's bedside and watched the few English-language channels for awhile. Josh was too tired to argue and couldn't remember when he'd last really slept, so he'd done as he was told. The nightmares were no picnic, but at least they stayed quiet, and he managed to sleep for almost four and a half hours.

They talked during the small hours of the night, Josh pulling up another chair by the bedside so that one of them was always holding Donna's hand. Nora told Josh about Donna's childhood, about her many small adventures, her siblings, her scholastic accomplishments. Maybe it was only because of the circumstances and the lateness of the hour, but she spoke frankly about how disappointed and baffled they'd been when Donna had dropped out of college, and how worried when she'd left town so precipitously to throw in her lot with the governor of New Hampshire. In return, Josh had shared his best Donna stories,the way she'd hired herself onto the campaign, the rules she'd made during his convalescence that even the President and Leo had followed, the intuitive leap that had ended Senator Stackhouse's filibuster and gotten ten million dollars for autism research, and so many more. It was hard to explain to anyone on the outside how much more Donna did than the average assistant, how she could assume a contrarian position in a heartbeat to hone his arguments or find a way to an intransigent lawmaker through her network of friendly staffers. How much it mattered that she was there even when he had to work till midnight, researching for him or filing or just playing solitaire so he wouldn't be the only one in the West Wing.

“Does she know how much you love her, Josh?” Nora asked as the sky began to turn a deeper blue, signaling the approach of dawn.

“I hope so,” he replied simply. “If she doesn't, I plan on explaining again when she wakes up.” Nora nodded at that. “You should get some food,” he told her. His voice was hoarse from talking. “Food's okay down in the cafeteria, you can probably get a breakfast schnitzel or something.”

She'd chuckled at that idea but taken his advice, stretching her aching muscles as she got out of the chair and headed downstairs. Josh switched seats and turned the television on low, watching the news anchors talk about the arrest of the alleged mastermind behind the bombing. There was some small amount of satisfaction in that, but not nearly as much as he might have thought. It didn't really change anything for him here and now.

“Josh?”

The word, barely a whisper, took a moment to penetrate his tired brain. Then it came again, more insistently, and he quickly turned to focus entirely on Donna. She was whispering his name with her eyes still half-closed, looking around for him. She was awake. She could remember his name.

He leaned over to fill her field of view. “Hey,” he murmured. “You're awake.” She looked so fragile and exhausted that speaking at normal volume seemed impossible. “Your mom is here. She went down to get some breakfast, but she'll be right back.”

Donna seemed to be studying him, her eyes fathomless with her pupils still blown wide from the drugs. “You're still here,” she finally observed.

“Yeah,” Josh reached out and touched her face, smoothed the backs of his fingers against her cheek to reassure himself he wasn't dreaming. “I'm still here.”

She sighed and smiled just a tiny bit, relaxing again. He thought maybe she'd gone back to sleep, but she was gathering her strength. When she opened her eyes again, they were more focused. “Did you mean it?” she whispered. “What you said?”

He nodded. “I've never meant anything more.”

“Good.” She nodded once and then closed her eyes again, and this time she really did fall back to sleep. Josh didn't mind. Everything was going to work out somehow from here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Timing, degree and conviction are the three wise men in this life.” -R.I. Fitzhenry


End file.
